Representative Barbara Lee requested on Sunday that President Joe Biden reconsider his plan to supply highly lethal and contentious cluster bombs to Ukraine as it conducts its counteroffensive against Russia.
Cluster bombs are banned in about 125 nations due to their proclivity to bring indiscriminate death and devastation to non-military targets, unleashing dozens of tiny explosive submunitions that typically spread mid-air to impact many targets, much like several pellets spread from a single shotgun shell. The danger, according to U.S. officials, is particularly in the submunitions, which do not always explode immediately and might inflict harm long after they are deployed if discovered by an unwary individual.
The White House stated on Friday that it will provide the weapons to Ukraine after denouncing Russia’s use of them only last year, claiming that using the explosives against civilian targets might constitute a “war crime.” Since Congress placed significant limitations on exporting cluster bombs to foreign states in 2010, Biden was compelled by U.S. law to obtain a special clearance to send them to Kyiv.
Lee was one of 19 House Democrats who signed a letter on Friday condemning Biden’s decision as “contrary to Congress’s restrictions on the transfer of these weapons and severely undermines our moral leadership.”
When asked why Biden chose to send cluster munitions to Kyiv as the war reaches 500 days, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told the press that the move was intended to help Ukraine strengthen its ongoing counteroffensive, which “in some ways is not moving as fast as [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky would like.”
Kirby stated that the U.S. military sector is “trying to ramp up” production of the most often used howitzer artillery rounds in Ukraine, but that the rate “is still not where we want it to be.”
However, Kirby also claimed that the White House is “very mindful of concerns about civilian casualties and unexploded ordnance being picked up by civilians” and that the U.S. will “focus with Ukraine on de-mining efforts” to prevent the submunitions from causing harm to the population.
Kirby repeated National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s comments from Friday, inferring that the American cluster bombs the U.S. wants to deliver have a much lower “dud rate,” or rate of unexploded ordnance, than those employed by Russia.
Stay informed! Receive breaking news blasts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts Bailey: When 19 of your own party members (democrats) turn against you, you should know you're doing a crappy job. Whomever is making the decisions in the White House have been doing this stupid stuff since Biden entered office. |
Monday, July 10, 2023
Dem Congresswoman urges Biden to reconsider sending cluster bombs to Ukraine
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